


Endgame

by thedevilchicken



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Chess Metaphors, Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-27
Updated: 2007-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 18:43:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4232685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duncan and Methos play a game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Endgame

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written on 27 August 2007.

It started as a postscript, a PS on a postcard from Toulon of all places with a return address marked as a PO Box somewhere in central London. There it was, after a main message that said nothing but _nice weather here_ in that lazy-neat handwriting that Duncan would have recognised anywhere: e2-e4. 

He didn’t mean to respond. He buried the card in a stack of magazines that he wasn’t in a terrible hurry to read and tried to forget about it while he went about his business; it was summer then and he was teaching the odd class over at the university, languages this time though it wasn’t necessarily his forte. A couple of morning classes a week, one in Russian that was bizarrely populated by undergrad English majors with the hots for Tolstoy and one in Business German that made him want to weep for humanity. A couple of afternoons of freelance antique appraisal, a couple of nights watching the live acts at Joe’s while nursing a beer and wondering, as always, just how conspicuous he looked carrying a heavy leather jacket over his arm in the sweltering summer heat. 

But then one day, just over two weeks later, maybe three, he found the card again. e2-e4. Taunting him, bold penmanship, like he was already sure of victory. So he wrote back: e7-e5. Just that. Nothing else. 

The reply came a fortnight later, sitting on top of a shirt that he’d ordered from Paris. The card said Monte Carlo this time, with a broad shot of the harbour from the shore though Duncan had a feeling that Methos wasn’t really there at all. d2-d4; he told himself he didn’t care where he was and put the card aside. Ten minutes later, he replied - _to hell with it_ , he thought, scribbling down _e5xd4_ to take Methos’ pawn. He mailed it to the PO Box in London on his way to class. He didn’t think of it again. Really he didn’t.

At least, not until the next time. _c2-c3_ , said the card from San Remo and it sat on Duncan’s desk in his temporary classroom for a week before he decided to reply. He looked at the damn thing every day, turned to the side showing the picturesque photography though he knew exactly what the message said. He didn’t understand, but it maybe should have worried him that correspondence chess with Methos was far from the strangest thing in the world that could have befallen him. So he replied, aggressively: d4xc3, black pawn takes white pawn. 

Bf1-c4. Methos moved out his Bishop in a card bearing what had to be the single ugliest photo of Turin in all existence; Duncan had never been a big football fan and the Stadio delle Alpi covering half of the card and a poorly-lit shot of a church whose name he shamefully couldn’t remember was _not_ terribly appealing to him. But the message was interesting, at least on some level, must have been because he brought his chessboard out of storage and laid out the pieces on it, amused in an ironic sort of way that he was black and Methos white. He wasn’t really thinking ahead when he wrote back to London, c3xb2, and took another pawn. 

The board stood untouched for three weeks. Duncan glanced at it every time he walked past, five or six times a day, wondering what Methos saw for this game in his head. It bothered him when he was marking quizzes, grading tests, though he knew he cared more about why more than what. So when the card came, making the obvious move to capture his pawn with Methos’ bishop, he really only cared that there was finally a reply. Milan this time, complete with fashion photo dating back about twenty years that he supposed was meant to be retro but just reminded him horribly of that fashion black hole known as the 1980s. 

He replied by moving out his queen. He was playing recklessly but didn’t particularly give a damn about that, just wanted to see what Methos would do next, and where from. Verona, Venice, north to Graz; a few discreet enquiries proved he was in none of those places and so Duncan stopped checking. Vienna. Bratislava, Budapest, north to Krakow, then Warsaw, then Vilnius. Methos had nine pieces to Duncan’s eleven by then and he was still confused. It was November, they’d been playing for months, nearly a year, more than, another summer, another winter. He’d taken three heads, four, five, he’d fobbed off an unamused Amanda with half-hearted excuses and he didn’t think that would matter as long as the replies kept coming. Especially now the days were getting short again, the wind starting to bite. He told himself he liked the distraction.

Minsk, then Kiev; little nancying moves that Duncan was almost ashamed of. If Methos was really that far north and east he’d be freezing his ancient ass off so he was inclined to believe he’d headed for warmer climes by now. He came home from a date early one night just to check the position of his pieces before replying, he’d been doodling a chessboard on a napkin all evening and it was then that he realised. He was kidding himself, or had been; where Methos was _did_ matter, he just knew he couldn’t find him. Even the Watchers couldn’t help, or wouldn’t, or both. He wanted him back in Seacouver, whether that was right or wrong, but all he had of him was this game. 

So, he decided to lose. 

Odessa, Bucharest, down into Turkey with a postcard from scenic Istanbul, though the card itself was hardly scenic. Ten pieces left to Methos’ eight but he knew what he was doing, meant to leave himself wide open if only Methos would follow. Athens - Bh8-F6 put him into check but evasion was easy. Malta next and Methos developed his queen still further; Duncan moved a knight, his only one remaining, in reply. His response to Palermo left one bishop wide open to Methos’ queen and he lost it with the card from Tunis. A late Christmas card from Algiers arrived in January with yet another move. Methos wasn’t making this easy; he suspected he knew. 

A pause. The weather was terrible, a foot of snow and Seacouver ground to a halt. He was still teaching but it was something different now, far from the dreaded German for Business and Japanese for Travel. But the cards stopped; he’d find himself jogging into the building each day after work, cold but almost excited to find the mail. Then he’d sift through it, past the bills for landline and cell, past the electric and the gas and _could you get a better deal on your credit card?_ But there was no card. Not for a month. Not for two. It would have worried him in the worst of ways if he hadn’t been so stubbornly sure that the old man could take care of himself. 

Absence made it harder. He tried to date, mostly at Joe’s urging, but his sullen mood made that nigh on impossible. He tried to focus on his work but short of testing his poor class into submission his options in that direction were severely limited. He would’ve liked to call Methos, get him on the phone and tell him to stop being a petulant brat but all he could do was send letters; he didn’t, only one, a repeat of his last move: Re4xe5, black rook takes white bishop. One more move and he could resign from a hopeless position or face an ugly endgame that he couldn’t hope to win. But the reply didn’t come. 

More time went past and no reply. Betrayal or the perception of it, the years and character that separated them, seemed not to matter when considering the real possibility that he may never see Methos again, not until the Gathering and perhaps not even then. Sometimes, sitting at his desk trying to teach Renaissance Art or drinking at Joe’s, cradling a beer, he’d wonder if he wasn’t dead already with their game left unfinished and he’d tell himself he’d know. Other times he wasn’t sure at all. He might never see him again, might never touch him the way he’d never quite got used to once upon a time and numerous petty, self-questioning freak-outs that Methos had mocked him for in the way only he could ever get away with as he lay there half-naked in the afterglow. He couldn’t say he couldn’t bear the loss but he knew he didn’t really want to have to. Deep down, he knew he’d always assumed they’d have time. Now time was all he had, and a sword, and a disused chessboard that was starting to gather dust. 

And then, one night: 

He came home from school and a long, late class on something he was fairly sure was meant to be Elizabethan international relations but had veered off course substantially into the realm of the great Spanish sword makers. It was cold outside and raining; he jogged inside dripping water all over the floors and almost missed it, sitting there on the floor by the door, almost stepped on it. A chess piece. A white king, lying on its side. Game over. 

He opened the door and there was Methos, stretched out on the couch and drowning in a sweater that had always been too big for Duncan, never mind him. Duncan suspected the amusement value was part of the point.

“I thought you were in Athens,” he said, not looking at him as he was looked at, shrugging off his coat and tossing it onto a nearby chair. He heard the familiar thunk of his katana against wood. “Or London. Or Toledo or Reykjavik.” 

Methos’ head tilted with a little smirk-smile so he could rest it on his hand to look at him. “You don’t really think that I went to any of those places, do you?”

Duncan shook his head, moving closer. “I think you were in Paris the whole time.”

“How do you know?” He seemed amused, sitting himself up now. 

Duncan shrugged. “Hiding in plain sight.”

“You’re good.”

“I try.”

They paused then. In a moment, Duncan knew he’d kiss him; he’d pull him up by the front of that hideous borrowed sweater if he had to, yank him in close to kiss him roughly, make him admit he was sorry he'd ever left. But a moment more and he knew he wouldn’t have to. 

“I don’t even like chess, Mac,” Methos said, with a shrug and a smile. 

And if Duncan hadn’t wanted this, he never would have replied in the first place.


End file.
